The Art of War
by IAmTheUltimateGleek
Summary: "I..am a mistake...and I'm so tired of this all. The war. The fighting..."


Sweaty hands clenched along the hilt of each soldier's weapons as the soft rattle of everyone's armor rang through out the open field. Not a single soul dared to move.

Before each army stood their crown prince. Decorated in the colors of their respective nations. Swords were pressed tightly against the holsters of their metal armor. Each man was waiting anxiously for one wrong move to push them into unsheathing their blades.

However despite being less than a few yards away from one another, well within attack range, neither prince moved. They simply stood along with their siblings in deafening silence.

Waiting.  
Watching.  
Keeping everyone in a several mile radius on the barest thread of a trigger finger.

Between the two factions, in the center of the no man's land, stood a young girl. Who's beauty could only be matched by the power of the dragon's vein that pulsated through her heart.

Kamui.

Her ruby eyes were downcast, hands clenched into tight fists. The only movement came from the soft mid summer breeze that ruffled her cape in no single direction.

Both sides had called out to her.

Yet she had yet to look up from the ground beneath her bare feet.

Marx broke first. His impatience showing as he dismounted his horse.

"Kamui."

No response.

The blond heir came close to taking another step forward, but the sudden sound of Ryouma's sword edging from it's place along his hip caused both families to tense.

"Take one more step. I dare you."

Marx had instinctively gone for his blade as well, but seeing that the other had not drawn his fully, the prince respectively retracted his step.

Not without comment of course.

"While I understand barbaric tendencies are to be expected of your kingdom, I had hoped you'd be a little more gracious. She is clearly upset."

Ryouma re-sheathed his sword before crossing his arms.

If looks could kill both men would have lied dead ten times over.

"I can see that. However to allow you any closer would be a failure on my part as her eldest brother."

No one missed how Ryouma had punctuated the word "brother", but before Marx could retaliate, Leon released a barely audible chuckle that seemed to echo across the battlefield.

It lacked any sense of humor or genuine mirth.

Hinoka tightened the grip she had on her staff. Her knuckles were nearly white with agitation as the venom in her voice snapped. Like a snake being pressed into a corner.

"Something funny?"

"Nothing you'd need concern yourself over. It's just to hear your crown prince call our dear Kamui 'sister' is funny."

Sakura seemed to grow the tiniest bit more bold as she moved to stand besides Hinoka.

"Kamui is our sister!"

Leon shrugged carelessly, though if close enough one could see his hand tighten around the edge of his tomb.

"By genetics perhaps, but I don't seem to recall any one of you savages near her for any time during her early life. The fact that you've met her at all was a mistake on fate's part."

Hinoka would have charged forward had Takumi not been close enough to restrain her arm.

"You bastards stole her!"

"She was abandoned in our territory."

"THAT'S A LIE!"

Takumi had to shoulder his bow in order to place both his hands around Hinoka's waist to keep her from charging.

Ryouma fared no better. If the eclectic currents pulsating from his blade were anything to go by, he too was losing his will to restrain a call for "charge".

Before either side could think about arguing any longer though, Kamui raised her face.

Both families fell into another round of silence.

Kamui's eyes were glazed over with tears, yet there was no visible flush or shortness of breath indicating that she had been crying as badly as it seemed.

There was only noticeable thing anyone could see was a pained loss of emotion. Like that of a broken mirror.

"Do you remember that time Elise and I got lost outside of the fortress?"

No one, not even Elise, had expected the question or had a proper response.

"We were trying to find a Hoshidan to defeat so that father would recognize us as proper soldiers. She was too young and I was too foolish to realize our mistake until we ended up lost in the forest. Unprepared, under trained, gone for three whole days..."

Marx had an unexplainable sinking feeling in his chest. He could recall those three days well, just as he was sure Camilla and Leon could as well.

It had been hell.

"By the time Gunther had tracked us down, Elise was so sick from the cold that she missed two weeks of training. Father rightfully blamed me and ordered an immediate punishment from the tutors. I was chained and hit until every bone in my body was shattered. Then he sent a master healer who promised to kill me if I so much as breathed a word of what had transpired..but I doubt he ever told you about that did he?"

The Nohr siblings seemed to swallow a little harder at the new bout of information. Suddenly each wondered if it had truly been "illness" that had prevented many of their visits to the fortress ever couple of weeks, or if Kamui had been "disciplined" more often then not.

The Hoshido children appeared all the more enraged. Even Takumi, who looked noticeably paler after hearing the tale, had felt an unfamiliar sense of protectiveness overcome his heart.

But Kamui wasn't done.

"Even with Gunther's protection, father would send tutors who were instructed to physically reprimand me for every mistake. Whips, punches, even one who had a fancy for fire. I can't count the number of times I wished for death back then..."

Camilla nearly snapped her axe in half in her sudden need to pretend that it was Kamui's tutors' necks in her hands. Or better yet father's. She had never been so genuinely angry.

Leon looked as though he was close to losing his breakfast.

Elise was sobbing.

Marx refused to meet his sister's gaze. Though he could most definitely feel red irises burning a hole into the side of his head. Intentionally or not, he could feel his past failures to protect her crawling along his spine like a virus.

They all had failed her.

Ryouma suddenly saw no need to allow the silence to stretch on any longer.

"Kamui. I am sorry we couldn't be with you then, but please let us be the loving family you never had. We can fix-"

The princess held up her hand. The tiniest fraction of a smile beginning to misplace itself among her tear stained face.

"That's just the thing. I never needed another family. I had Marx, Camilla, Leon, and Elise. They loved me...they gave me so much to want to live for. Father...Garon said I deserved every punishment and maybe he was right, I was always so careless."

"Kamui no one deserves such a twisted view on life. No one deserves to be abused! You-"  
"Please. They didn't know...They couldn't have. These four were my only real family for years. When I met you all...when I met mother...I..."

The princess's words finally caught in her throat as a nervous bubble of hiccups began to interrupt her sad laughter.

Sad and devastated.

"I-I found it! T-that compassion Garon only e-ever showed my siblings! I-I found m-my real mother w-who loved me. Siblings w-who -who were related t-to me! I-I -"

Aqua and Joker, who had been standing besides their respective parties wanted nothing more than to go and comfort the hysterical princess.

But Kamui's next words stunned them into paralysis.

"AND I-I COULDN'T STAND IT! T-the w-warmth the k-kindness?! Who treats a-an estranged child th-that way! I -I couldn't even g-get to know her before I-I-I got her killed! My birth m-mother died s-saving a child s-she hardly knew! WHO DOES THAT?!"

The princess nearly fell over herself in laughter. Her legs gave in as she kneeled onto the ground. White hair nearly touching the dirt beneath her due to her head being thrown back so far. The arms that held her sides were shaking too violently to be from the laughter.

Nohr's forces were frozen in shock at the sight of their heir. Hoshido's army reared back in caution, fearing another possible appearance of Kamui's dragon rage.

The two families refused to move though. Saddened and overpoweringly worried expressions marred their faces. Hinoka, Elise, and Leon had tears brimming at their eyes.

Kamui suddenly found it within herself to stop laughing as she stared upwards at the orange and purple sky.

The sun would set fully in an hour tops and she could already tell the view would be spectacular.

It was such a beautiful day.

And here she was teetering on the very thinnest of lines between insanity and heartbreak.

A tragedy in itself.

"You know...everything I've ever done has hurt someone. My siblings...Gunther...mother...everything I do is a mistake."

Red eyes looked forward to stare directly in between Marx and Ryouma. Not meeting a single sibling's eye as the princess seemed to stare into an unforeseen other reality.

"I..am a mistake...and I'm so tired of this all. The war. The fighting..."

The sound of a sword being unsheathed echoed across the terrain.

"I just-"

Eight faces reacted at once.

"-want it-"

Ryouma and Marx lunged forward with matching cries of NO breaking past their lips.

"-to stop."

Camilla and Hinoka's inhumane screams clattered past ever single soldier within miles. Chilling the blood of everyone.

Weapons were dropped on both sides as dozens of healers began to rush forward.

Second in commands were forced to take hold of the hysterical royals as they began to overwhelm the needed room surrounding Kamui.

Elise dropped to her knees and covered her eyes.

Sakura stood rooted to her spot in absolute horror.

Leon had begun to wretch the second his mind registered everything.

Takumi's bow fell soundlessly as his legs gave out.

Hinoka and Camilla were each fighting off their own soldiers that tired desperately to keep them from reaching for Kamui's limp hand.

Marx had fallen back against his horse and shook with the ferocity of an earthquake.

Ryouma slowly raised a hand to his head and tried to block out the buzzing that was deafening his ears.

The magic being spoken overhead did little good to stop the slow stream of red that was leaking out from where princess Kamui's sword had stabbed through her own heart.


End file.
